Authors: Jon Cleary
When the women and Jason were gone, he gestured for Malone and Clements to sit down, “I don't think this is gunna take long, is it?”
“Probably notâmind if I call you George? I feel I know you, I've been reading about you for years.”
“On charge-sheets?” But George Rockne smiled. “Not much of that, not for years, not since I got out of union politics.”
“There was a piece about you the other day in the
Herald,”
said Clements.
The old communist nodded, the smile gone. “A snotty-nosed girl reporter, you knew she'd been educated at one of them private schools. She wanted to know what I thought of the death of communism, did I regret all the years I was deceived.
Deceived
! Christâah. you don't wanna talk about that, do you?”
“I don't,” said Clements, who had seen enough dreams die; not his own, but other people's. “I don't think the inspector does, either.”
“No,” said Malone. “George, I understand you and Will didn't get on?”
“We got on better over the last few months.” Rockne sounded cautious; but then, over the years, he had been subjected to a lot of interrogation, had had his words taken out of context. “I guess Will didn't tell his missus about it. We don't get on well, Olive and me, I mean.”
“Did Will ever talk to you about enemies, threats, things like that?”
Rockne
shook his head. “Inspector, Will was nothing more than a suburban solicitor, he wasn't a big-time criminal lawyer, he never got himself into any business with gamblers or crims likeâ”
“Like who?”
Rockne shook his head again. “No names, no pack drill.”
“Will must've got himself involved with
someone.
He has over five million bucks squirrelled away in a small bank in his own name.”
Rockne said nothing for a moment; the lines on his face deepened, like eroded earth falling in on itself. “In his own name? You sure?”
“We're sure, George.” Malone was watching him carefully.
“Jesus! How'd he make that much? All he was ever interested in was making a dollar, that was one of the things we used to argue about. You'd ask him what someone was like and he'd tell you how much he was worth, that was his yardstick, how much anyone was worth. I used to call him the Eighth Dwarf, Yuppy. I never thought to ask him how much
he
was worth. Where'd he get it?”
“He could of stole it,” said Clements from the sideline.
Rockne jerked his head quickly towards him. “Shit, no! I wouldn't wanna think that of him!” It was hard to tell whether he spoke as a father or as a communist; it was bad enough having a greedy materialist as a son, but a
thieving
one? “Nah, I think you're making a mistake there.” But he sounded neither convinced nor convincing. “Are you looking into that?”
“Yes,” said Malone. “If he did steal the money from some client, it could've been the client who murdered him.”
“This has floored me, I don't mind telling you. What'll it do to Olive and the kids?”
“I hate to think. I mean that, especially to the kids.”
“But not so much to Olive?” Rockne lowered his head, looked at the detective from under sandy brows.
“Olive is bearing up better than I expected. What do you think?”
“Women are tougher than we give 'em credit for.”
“
Is that why you never let 'em get far in the Party?” said Clements, but smiled.
The bony face creased again. “Give 'em an inch and they take a mile. It's a man's world. That's the only thing God got right.” Then he added, “If you admit there's a God.”
Malone stood up. “Righto, George. Could you give Sergeant Clements your address and phone number, just in case we want to talk to you further?”
“You think you will?”
“It's on the cards, George.”
Rockne called in Sugar and they both left, their farewells abrupt except to Jason, who escorted them to the front door. Malone and Clements went out to the garden, took coffee from Mrs. Carss and sat with Olive on fold-up chairs beside the pool. Shelley had gone into the house and the two detectives sat facing Olive; a neighbour, peering over one of the side fences, might have mistakenly remarked that Olive was questioning the two men. The house was built on a double-block and the three of them were far enough away from the next-door gardens not to be overheard.
“Oliveâ” Malone sipped his coffee; Mrs. Carss made a poor cup, too weak. Or maybe it was some sort of revenge for being kept on the outer. “Something you told me Saturday night doesn't fit with something we've heard since.”
“Oh?” Olive, like the coffee in the cup she had been holding when the two detectives came out to her, was cold. She put down the cup and saucer on the tiles surrounding the pool, then sat with her knees together and her hands folded in her lap. Like an old-fashioned convent girl, one educated by nuns cloaked in old habits. “In what way? What did I say?”
“You said you heard the shot that killed Will. We have a witness who swears there was no shot, we think a silencer was used on the gun. He also swears that Will never got out of the car.”
“Who is this
witness?”
“I'll give you his name at the proper time.”
“He's lying or he's mistaken. There
was
a shot.”
“We're not saying there wasn't. I've told you, we think a silencer was used and in that case you
wouldn'
t have heard any shot. You also said that Will had left the car lights on and he went back to turn them off while you waited for him. The witness says that's not the way it was. He saw you, but there was no sign of Will and the car lights were switched off as soon as you drove into the car park. When I looked at the car on Saturday night the keys were still in the ignition.”
Olive looked at the pool, where camphor laurel leaves floated like dead green fish. She was young middle-aged this morning; or anyway, no longer girlish. Then she glanced at Clements, taking notes, then back at Malone. “Are you accusing me of something, Scobie?”
“Not yet. Did Jason tell you about the money we've found in Will's name in a private bank?”
“Yes. I find it hard to believe . . .”
“Oh, it's true enough. We've been to the bank this morning and checked it. Do you have a bank account of your own?”
She hesitated. “No-o. Will and I always had a joint account. Heâhe always said I couldn't handle money.”
Malone could imagine Will Rockne's arrogance there. “We also found ten thousand dollars in a cash box in his safe. I checked with the joint bank account book we found in the safeâhe hadn't drawn that much money from the account. He would've had an office account and probably several clients' trust accountsâwe're having those checked. But there was a withdrawal of five thousand from your joint account last week. Did he mention that to you?”
“No-o. God, the things I didn't know about him!” She looked accusing, as if she blamed Malone for keeping this information from her. “Ours was an account where both signatures were necessary. But sometimes he'd get me to sign a blank cheque or two.”
Clements said, “Did you know he had an affair with his secretary, Miss Weigall?”
Her thin face was suddenly pinched; she was hurt, badly. She said nothing, just shook her head. A magpie flew down out of the camphor laurel, perched on the pool fence and sharpened its beak for future use. Malone said gently, “She told us, Olive, that it was only for one weekend. I don't think she meant anything to him. Did Will, er, play around?”
“
Never.” She was recovering. “He wasn't perfect, by a long shot, but no, he was never like that, chasing other women. He wasn't exactly a ladies' man.”
Lisa had thought that too, had once said that, like most Australian men, present company excepted, Will had as much charm as an empty beer bottle. But then she was European; Malone had been tempted to ask her how charming Dutch men were on their home turf, but hadn't been game. Jan Pretorious, her father, had charm, though Con Malone, the true blue Aussie, had called it smarm.
“Olive, could Will have withdrawn that five thousand? It might be part of the ten thousand.”
“He might have. I sometimes wouldn't see the chequebook for a couple of weeks.”
Clements, the bachelor, said, “You mean he kept tabs on everything you spent? I thought women these days had their own money?”
Malone got in before Olive could bite Clements's head off; she actually bared her teeth. “You said on Saturday night you were planning a trip to the Barrier Reef. Would Will have drawn the money to pay for that?”
“That was probably itâ” Her reply was a little too quick.
“Five thousand for a week on the Reef? With all the bargain rates I've seen advertised?” Lisa had brought the advertisements to his notice only a couple of weeks ago, but he hadn't taken the hints she had thrown at him like rocks.
“We were going to Lizard Island. It's exclusive, it's not cheap . . . And I was going to buy myself a new outfit . . .”
“What about the other five thousand? Where d'you think that came from?”
“I have no idea. I told you yesterday morning, Will never discussed his practice with me. Scobie, why are you grilling me like this?”
“Grilling? That wasn't the intention, Olive. Russ here will quote you some examples of what
grilling
is like. But if you feel that's what we've been doing, maybe next time you'd like to have your lawyer with you. Maybe Mrs. Bodalle?”
“You're coming back, to question me again?”
“
I think you can bet on it, Olive. So far you know more about Will than anyone else we've talked to.”
III
Detective-Constable John Kagal always looked smug, as if he had just won the State lottery or been invited to dinner by Michelle Pfeiffer. He was always dressed as if he expected a call from La Pfeiffer; Malone, whose ideal tailor was St. Vincent de Paul, wondered if Kagal's entire salary went on his wardrobe.
He was a good-looking young man with bright, intelligent brown eyes and custom-cut dark hair; he was slim, of medium height, and he moved with a certain grace that was natural. He was the only university-educated man in Homicide and he did not intend wasting that advantage. He was damned near perfect, a fact he modestly acknowledged if pressed.
“Righto, John, what've you got?”
It was late afternoon and Malone was tired. The Rockne case was still tops on his pad, but four other murder cases, which he was supervising, had begun to turn sour; evidence that had looked rock-solid had begun to crumble, willing witnesses had suddenly become deaf, dumb and blind. The natives voted for law and order every time, but too often they wanted their vote kept secret.
“Okay, here it is.” Kagal had a brisk voice; he would sound exactly right when he became Police Commissioner twenty-five or thirty years down the track. “I went out to the Commonwealth Bank's branch at Coogee, where the Rocknes hold their joint account. That five grand withdrawalâit was drawn, in cash, by
Mrs.
Rockne.”
“They're sure of that?”
“One of the tellers remembered giving it to herâthat's a large withdrawal in cash by an individual. The usual withdrawals were for four or five hundred weeklyâI guess they were for housekeeping. There were cheques made out to stores, electricity accounts, things like that.”
“Mrs. Rockne told me she knew nothing about that five thousand.” He did not ask why the
bank
had been so cooperative in revealing the details of the Rockne account. He never queried how his men worked, unless there was a complaint from outside; he knew that Kagal was not bent nor was he a stand-over man. Kagal, like every cop, knew that the proper channels too often led to a delta of silt. So if you had to detour round the rules or crash through them, you did so. “That's a couple of lies she's put to me. Why?”
“Is she the killer?” Kagal was always direct, a real arrow always on target. It was one of his few handicaps, if he wanted to make Commissioner. He was sitting opposite a man who had fired too many direct hits for his own good. The politicians swore with their hands on their hearts that the State would have no more corrupt Commissioners; they kept their hands on their breasts so that no straight-arrow appointee might pierce them with too much honesty. “If she knew of that other money, the five-and-a-bit million . . .?”
Malone nodded. “She's starting to look more and more like Number One suspect. But it's a bit early yet . . . You know Bernie Bezrow, the bookie? Find out what you can about him.”
“Scobie, I don't know anyone at all in the racing game, it's not my scene.” It obviously hurt Kagal to confess that he did not know everyone and everything. “Russ would do better than me there.”
Malone had known that all along; he wondered at the mean streak in himself that had made him show Kagal to be less than perfect. Had he started to protect his own back, was he like some old lion (well, a young middle-aged one) intent on holding his own against the young one? He had never really been competitive, or ambitious, but now it struck him that he was going to suffer no competition from Kagal, not if he could prevent it.
“Righto, I'll let Russ handle it. In the meantimeâ”
Then his phone rang. “Scobie? It's Don Cheshire.”
Sergeant Cheshire ran the Fingerprints Section out at Parramatta. He was one of the old school, suggesting he was more of a knuckle-man than a specialist in fingerprints, but there was no one in his job better than he. He had started thirty years ago when there had been two basic powders used to develop a fingerprint; now there were over a hundred chemicals that could do the job. He had first used a
bellows
camera; now there were a computer and the latest high-definition camera. Gruff and lumbering, he resembled a bull in a laboratory, but he had built and kept his reputation as the best.